The main legal point established in the judgment is the requirement to prove charges of corrupt practice and the validity of minor votes under the Representation of the People Act, 1951.

VELU PILLAI, J. : This is an appeal under section 116-A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, against the order of the Election Tribunal, Quilon, by which it dismissed the appellants election petition, for declaring him to have been duly elected to the State Assembly from Chadayamangalam Constituency on holding the election for the first respondent or the respondent for short, the returned candidate, to be void. The electoral roll was compiled under the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Representation of the People (Preparation of Electoral Rolls) Rules, 1956, which may be referred to hereafter as the 1950 Act and the Rules respectively, the qualifying date being January 1, 1959. The election and the trial of the election petition were held under the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 as amended in the year 1958, which may be referred to as the Act. The respondent was declared elected by a majority of 122 votes, having secured 25412 votes as against the appellants 25290 votes.

Respondents 2 and 3 are the two other candidates who were also defeated, but they have not taken part in the proceedings in this appeal. The election of the respondent was impugned chiefly on two grounds, first, that a large number of votes polled were minor votes, to use a compendious term, that is, votes of those who, though registered as electors on the electoral roll, had not completed twenty one years of age on the qualifying date, and second, that the respondent has been guilty by his agent, of having committed the corrupt practice defined in section 123 (4) of the Act, with his consent and in his interests. On the first, the Tribunal found only 35 minor votes to be proved, which was inadequate to upset the result of the election, and on the second, it held that the charge of corrupt practice was not proved. The above two grounds were reiterated before us in support of the appeal.

2. The appellant specified 315 instances of minor votes in the annexure to his petition but examined 172 voters. The evidence tendered with respect to them consisted of their school admission registers and in a few cases, also of their applications for admission to the schools. The tribunal classified these 172 instances into three groups. The first group comprised 32 instances, in which the voters admitted that they were minors and which were therefore conceded for the respondent to be of minor votes and 21 more which, the appellant contended, ought to be held to be similar to the 32 instances on a scrutiny of the evidence relating to them. The Tribunal, however, accepted only one out of the 21 to be a minor vote.

Of the rest, it rejected 4 instances in which, though minority was admitted, the electors deposed that they had not voted, and which were therefore treated as cases or personation, for which the appellant had not laid the requisite foundation in the pleadings, 11 instances on the ground that the parents or guardians were alive but were not examined, and the remainder on defects in the evidence. The second group comprised 74 instances out of which two alone were found to be minor votes, 55 being instances in which the parents or guardians were alive and were not examined, 4 being cases in which the supporting admission registers were of private schools which were not admissible in evidence, and the rest being cases in which the proof tendered was not up to the requisite standard. The third group, which comprised 45 instances was wholly excluded, as the relative admission registers were all of private schools. This was how the Tribunal held 35 alone to be minor votes.

3. The appellants learned counsel pressed for the acceptance of the rejected 20 instances in the first group and the 72 instances in the second group, and in particular, complained against the rejection, of the 4 proved minor votes, whoever may have cast such votes, on the ground of defective pleading in the election petition, and o